


release

by toastyhyun



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Jongin-centric, M/M, bulimia warning, gen au, self harm warning, sleep paralysis warning, suicide warning, the other pairings are secret/spoilerish so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 22:03:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5022157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastyhyun/pseuds/toastyhyun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he finds his first release with knees planted into the tiled floor and palms cupping the seat of a bowl sat on by way too many to count (more than twelve, if he had to estimate). with the taste of bile on his lips, jongin smiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	release

**Author's Note:**

> this is very personal to me bc i wrote it while i was in a dark dark place thus it hasn't been betaed and i know there are lots of errors throughout. it's already been posted on my lj but i figured i'd import some stuff here anw. pls enjoy! i welcome constructive criticism too.

Air catches in the recesses of his throat and Jongin can't breathe. He's stuck in between a rock and a hard place, staring something he finds even more difficult to deal with right in the face and he chokes. Rehearsed words cease in his lungs before they can even be shaped by trembling lips, before they can even make it up his throat and into the dip of his tongue.

His eyes are everywhere but the boy in front of him; on another taller male far off to his left, on a stray cobweb swaying in the stagnantly warm breeze, on the way the stucco rumbles over the ceiling. They water but Jongin blinks back all tears because he can't come off as weak.

Kim Jongin was built to last, never to break.

He swallows everything into a thick lump in the pit of his stomach that tugs at his chest, hollows it out, and he plasters on a smile, the only words rising in a sour tasting tinge up his throat a simple couplet of, "never mind."

Excusing himself to the bathroom, he throws up all his words and confessions and insecurities into a porcelain bowl greeting his arrival as if it were an old friend, accepting all his troubles without protest or mess and swallowing them into its gaping mouth of "it's okay, you're okay".

As he turns the knob and watches the remnants of what used to be a small piece of his heart swirl down the toilet, he feels a little lighter. A little thinner. A little more confident. A little more acceptable. He feels a little better. His throat burns but that's okay, because his heart does not contract.

He finds his first release with knees planted into the tiled floor and palms cupping the seat of a bowl sat on by way too many to count (more than twelve, if he had to estimate).

With the taste of bile on his lips, Jongin smiles.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's two months later and he's been at it every day, been using the throne to dump all of his hurt and ache into at the end of each day because whenever he sees that mop of blond he wants to cry. But -- Kim Jongin refuses to let himself be broken.

Soon, when Kyungsoo comes up to him all shy smiles and averted eyes, he's sort of reminded of himself, of how he'd acted on the same Tuesday a mere fourteen days ago, but instead of smiling at the similarities he finds he instead feels his blood run cold as realization sets in a haze over his bones.

"Jongin," he says, and his big blinky coal brown eyes finally gather enough courage to meet stingy cold black ones, layered with bags from nights of missed sleep, "I've been wanting to say this for a while now."

It's then that he finds himself stifled by everything -- Kyungsoo is too close, the walls are closing in, his lungs are collapsing and he can't breathe. He needs oxygen but doesn't have enough will nor power to inhale properly and he's suffocating. The elder's lips are moving and he hears bits and pieces ("since debut", "we've known each other a while", "more than a friend", "just wanted you to know") but it doesn't matter what he's saying because it means nothing. It's not what he wants to hear and it's not from the right person.

But he can't break. Not here, not now, not ever.

And he can't reject. He can't see hurt flash across those almost childish features of his and know that Kyungsoo is feeling the exact same way Jongin himself had felt time after time again, seeing everything that he felt when he saw . So he plasters on that same smile, a smile well practiced by flashing lights and cameras always trained on him, and he wraps broad arms around the smaller's shoulders to pull him into his chest.

Jongin buries his nose into a mound of scarlet and inhales the scent of red hair dye and strawberry shampoo to match, guilt brewing in the pit of his stomach though he doesn't let it show, still merely smiling and mumbling the words he knows the vocalist wants to hear although he doesn't even much register them himself. Syllables tumble from his lips as if he was programmed to say them, as if he was nothing but an AI computer built to make boys who deserved much more than just him happy by saying a few phrases that would woo him into false belief ("the same way", "pretty eyes", "pretty lips", "can I kiss you?")

After a total of five presses of pair to pair and a swarm of red blooming across previously pallid cheeks with each one, they bid goodnight to each other and slip off into their according rooms where members are already fast asleep after a day of torrential practicing, Jongin thanking the Lord (that he doesn't quite have faith in anymore) that he doesn't room with the shorter any longer.

Lips previously brushed and licked over by another are wet and quivering not twenty minutes later as Jongin looks at himself in the mirror, his entire frame shaking as the stench wafting from the toilet finally hits him and he realizes the full extent of what he's gotten himself into. He's roped another boy into his web of fucked up lies to himself and he doesn't exactly understand how or if he can get out himself anymore. Gripping onto the sink he wrestles with his throat as it closes in on itself and reopens and his stomach crashes and turns and flops and he can't look at himself any longer.

Gasping for air, he crashes right back into the comforting tiles of the bathroom floor and grips onto the bowl so hard his knuckles turn the same white as its blinding reflection, releasing whatever was left of the meals he'd eaten during the day and a whole lot of acid into the inviting porcelain.

The feeling of watching his troubles go down the drain is not as satisfying as it had been the first time and he finds his release isn't helping to release as it once had, but tries to blame it on the fact that he knows that tomorrow he's going to have to face the consequences of what he's done and learn how he's going to deal with them, with Kyungsoo and with the rest of his group (he doesn't want to call all of them his friends, exactly, because if Jongin had a real friend anymore, he would have had someone to confide in). He has to struggle not to cough up another load of what's left of his stomach contents at the thought and pulls himself up onto shaky legs, stumbling his way over to the door to flick off the light and swing it open just enough to slip outside.

What he's not expecting is Joonmyun to be standing right there, worried lines marring the contours of his otherwise flawless skin as his brow knits together in the middle. With only a small "let's get you back to bed" he takes Jongin by the elbow and gently, gently leads him back into their room, where Jongdae is snoring away as if nothing'd happened.

After being cocooned up in as many blankets as the leader can spare to drape over him the dancer rasps a soft demand for his hyung to go to bed, they have schedules tomorrow, they can't afford to lose any sleep. He's satisfied as he watches the elder finally give up a battle of what seems to be him trying to mash his top and bottom lips into one with how hard he sparsely presses them together in worry and instead retreat back to bed, pulling a loose couple sheets up and over himself with a mumbled good night that the raven haired boy returns in a heartbeat.

The taste of his guilt still on his lips, Jongin drifts off with hopes and prayers that he'll wake up three months in the past.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But when he awakes it's still night. He can feel that he's awake but there's a heavy feeling on his chest that he can't shake. Crusty eyelids sewn nearly shut by the sleep that'd gathered in their corners peel open with some effort and Jongin is greeted by a still dimly-lit room. The analog clock on the wall across from him (after a moment of thinking) reads two thirteen and he wonders why he's awake, watching the second hand tick tick tick it's way on to two fourteen.

He snaps from his thought as the minute hand snaps to the right, realizing that he should probably lull himself back under. A glass of warm milk has always helped to get back to sleep, as he now feels wide awake -- but when he goes to swing his legs over the side of the bed he finds that they don't respond. Fear strikes cold at the centre of Jongin's chest and he starts to desperately try and move his muscles.

He can't even turn his head, after a minute of trying, not even get a twitch of a finger from his unresponsive body. Panic sets in and his breathing quickens intensely, eyes closing in some attempt to block out what feels like a dream. It doesn't help, however, so he opens his eyes instead.

What he sees renders the boy even more paralyzed than he'd been before.

Thin, spindly black fingers are curled over the window to the right of the clock (he wonders who even left the window open in the first place in the back of his mind), drumming against the windowsill in a sickening pattern that rings loud in his eardrums, louder than it should. Despite his petrification he can't help but be curious and upon further investigation he realizes the hands.. can't be human. The digits are much too long, much too pointed, and there are no knuckles visible to what he can see. They scratch long, angry marks into the windowsill and Jongin is shocked as the welts begin to bleed a dark crimson, the thick liquid drip drip dripping its way onto the carpet in a pool that he's sure will stain.

He wants to cry out, to shout and wake up the others, he wants to spring from bed and shut and lock the window, keeping the thing out, but he can't. He can't move a muscle aside from his eyebrows and eyes themselves and he wants to sob because of it, because of the pure fear coursing through his veins. Joonmyun and Jongdae are still soundly asleep beside him and he wants to know why he is the only one who's awoken to see such a terrifying sight, why he couldn't have slept right on through. He wonders 'why me' for what feels like the nth time in the past month yet this time it's for a whole new reason.

I'm going crazy, he thinks to himself, eyes shutting as fast as he can get them to.

What sounds oddly like maniacal laughter (or is it children's laughter, pitched up -- he can't tell) starts to play faintly in the background of his ears, the sound fuzzy, as he basks in the darkness behind his eyelids, praying to god whatever has just attached itself to his window has already made it's way somewhere else, far away from him. Jongin inhales and exhales as evenly and deeply as he can manage.

He wonders if Kyungsoo would miss him if he passed on tonight. Probably.

He wonders if _he_ would cry if he died at the hands of this thing tonight. If the next morning Joonmyun and Jongdae awoke to find him in a pool of his own blood, torn from limb to limb with his entrails hanging out and organs missing. A pang zooms through his chest because he has no definite answer. Would he be too wound up in Kris's arms, crying, to properly mourn Jongin on his own? Would Kris soothe his tears? Would he make love to him to put thoughts of Jongin aside? Would he even cry in the first place? He doesn't want to think about it.

Maybe death isn't such a bad option, if it means getting away from all of this.

Eyes reopen but Jongin is completely surprised out of his wits to find a set of completely black orbs not inches from his face. His first instinct is to scream but his vocal chords don't respond, so he sits there wide eyed in silent horror as the creature sits atop his chest, its unnaturally long thumbs (can they even be considered thumbs, with nails like that?) slide up the expanse of his cheek and wipe away the tears budding and blurring his vision before dribbling down his flesh. The rest of its fingers curl underneath his chin, and Jongin wants now to run more than ever. Death may have seen viable not seconds earlier but now with the aspect of a probable snapped neck at the hand of a flick of this thing's wrists his heart jumps up and sets into overdrive.

It hammers and flits around his ribcage and Jongin stutters in breathing, nostrils flaring as the night black, almost shiny animal sinks back on his frame. It's no larger than a housecat, with hands the same breadth as its humanly sized head, big black eyes bugging out from round, sunken sockets.

If it could talk, if it would talk, he imagines its voice to be scratchy with it's short throat, he imagines it would have extremely sharp reflexes and strength despite its stout frame. Instead of thinking about the way it's nails scrape down his neck and down his chest only to draw the string loose from his sweats and tug both them and his underwear down around his knees, he tries to focus on his breathing desperately. Jongin miserably fails and he panics for a moment, fearing alien probing or rape or something like those crazy people who claim alien abduction seem to rave about (is he about to become one of them? somehow he thinks he's already gone insane enough, let alone having everyone else think so) but then moments later when nothing seems to near his backside he waits in simple silence, bared, afraid, helpless.

The monster props him up to sit down with back against his headboard after a few painfully, agonizingly slow minutes, arms at his sides, though he still cannot move. A sharp, black index finger meets the plain of his thigh and Jongin finds it in himself to inhale sharply through his nose when it draws across the width of it with added pressure, eyelids blinking so fast he doesn't understand what's happening. One moment there's a visible white line where he'd been scratched and the next it's fading into his skin tone, and he wonders what that was for.

It's when he sees scarlet that dread blooms in Jongin's chest. It seeps up into a line and begins to bead at the surface, a pretty line of red dotted with unevenly spaced and sized blots along it. Amidst his panic he has to think of the beauty being painted across his paled thighs as scratch after scratch is layered across them and he sits and watches.

Sweep after sweep, indent and indent, line after line, each criss cross of each cut begins to look like an abtract painting across his skin and the muscles in his face are working enough for him to smile, now. His voice doesn't respond to his will but it doesn't matter because he's sort of enjoying this, watching his worries and troubles vacate him through his bloodstream. All of the bad and hurt and worry that's built up inside is leaking out onto his thighs and he feels just as great as he had that first day in front of the toilet.

It's only after he's lost count of the red scratches marking him that he starts to feel lightheaded with all the blood that's vacated his body and he wonders why it doesn't hurt. There's a familiar light feeling in his stomach and Jongin wonders if dying, watching yourself die at the hands of another -- is another way of release. He wonders and wonders and wonders until his brain hurts and he simply closes his eyes again, too out of it to keep them open any longer.

In moments, he's asleep.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The second time he awakes is much less eventful, yet much more satisfying.

The clock reads nine am and Jongin is glad that when he glances over, both of his roommates have already vacated their living space. He sits up in bed, thankful that he's back in control of all his muscles, and hesitantly glances around his room, fearing the worst. The creature is still on his mind, it's almost soulless (is that too cliche?) gaze still embedded right into his mind's eye. He can't get it off his mind.

However upon inspection, he finds nothing on his sheets, despite how much blood he'd seen drip off his skin and onto them. There is not even a hint of any blood or scratch marks on them and in fact they look even cleaner than they had before, the window itself tightly shut and locked and deep scratches on the sill nowhere to be found.

Nightmare. That's all it'd been.

He has to laugh, in spite of himself getting so worked up over what seemed to be nothing. There'd been no black monster. There'd been nothing even close to it that'd crawled inside and on top of him, because it simply didn't exist. He chided himself for being so foolish, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The eerie, seemingly endless depth of the thing -- whatever it was -- 's eyes still swam in his mind's eye, but now with knowledge that it isn't anything real he feels much less on edge than before.

Jongin's sweatpants are still on, too, but he needs to change into something much more appropriate (and less stinky) before any of his members see him. Joonmyun probably knows what's happened last night -- it'd be easy to play it off as a stomach bug, so long as he hadn't been on the verge of catching him at any other time. The dancer doubted he had. 

Swimming amidst ways he could lie to his group about his problem with needing a release for everything, he's already got his sweatpants off and into the hamper, slipping his boxers around his thighs and glancing down in lazy habit. He chokes on what little air he'd inhaled, fingers now a vice around the elastic of the underwear.

Layered across his thighs are large, white bandages, held down by medical tape he recognizes from the cabinet in the kitchen, and they cover every spot he can still vividly remember the pierce of skin had occurred. Slipping into another small panic, he fumbles to peel a bandage back by the corner, ignoring the way the tape holds its adhesive fast to his skin and painfully peels it back, more intent on dipping his torso down and peering beneath.

Fresh, red slashes greet him and Jongin's breathing starts to quicken, each breath nearly overlapping the other as he seals the edges of the bandaid back down against his skin. His mind is racing and racing and it's not stopping and he's getting woozy and lightheaded, unsure of anything as he sits there in shock. He stands and pulls his boxers back up in case anyone walks in again, though soon he's quickly taking long strides over to the door to rip it open and stumble outside.

Nine pairs of eyes are in the living room, greeting his barely dressed form, but he doesn't care, the only thing on his mind the wounds on his thigh and the demon that'd visited him in the night. He manages to make his way to the bathroom down the hall and thankfully it's not locked as he busts through it with clammy fingers slipping over the doorknob and shoulder ramming into it at the same moment.

Jongin tumbles onto the familiar tile floor but before he can relaxes into it's cool embrace he's upchucking everything and anything into the toilet. His fear, his worry, his hurt, his happiness, his disgust, his repulsion, his love, his lust, and of course -- not to forget a whole bucketload of stomach acid, which burns up the ripple of his throat worse than ever before.

There's someone in the bathroom and he feels them more than he sees them, their shout of surprise and loud worried voicings of worry hitting him with such force that he throws up again. His back is hunched over and his shoulders themselves bunched, a larger weight settling upon them as his eyes close and he sees those eyes stare at him yet again until they flash open again, the black orbs echoing still into reality in the green and yellow mass floating in the toilet in front of him.

Everything's still fuzzy around him and he's cold, so cold, but there's a pair of lanky arms wrapping around his frame a few moments after he's upchucked the final time and he's being lifted off of his feet and into their hold. Jongin's vision swims but by the scent he guesses it's Chanyeol carrying him (the odd choice of cologne gives it away -- thankfully it's not overwhelming enough to make his stomach churn but distinct enough that he doesn't have to glance up) and he sees a mop of red at the door that indiciates Kyungsoo has pushed in front of the crowd of the other ten boys to see his pitiful boyfriend.

Chanyeol's chest is bare and slightly damp (probably from a shower) and Jongin clings to it, his cheek pressing into the warmth like it's his lifeline. He's shivering even before he lays him down on the couch and there's an army of blankets being lain atop his quivering body, his hand slung off the side of the cushions only to be held in a crushing embrace by both of the redhead's.

As the warmth of the blankets and even the body heat from Kyungsoo's hand begins to flow up his arm everything begins to focus back in and the blurry blobs huddled around the tiny sofa he's on and perched on the others around the room begin to focus in, their soft speaking finally clueing into his brain in actual phrases and articulated words.

"Are you sick?"

"Do you need anything?"

"Medicine? Food? Water?"

"He's so pale.."

"Are you warm enough?"

"Minseok, get more blankets."

"Jongin?"

"Jongin?"

"Jongin?"

"Jongin?"

"Jongin?"

His limbs are strong enough to lift and cover his ears when the bombardment of his own name begins to meld together into a big lot of noise and he can feel the beginnings of a headache begin to brew in his temples. It all quiets down with a quick and quiet hushing from Joonmyun, who comes to kneel beside Kyungsoo right in front of him.

"Jongin, you're not going to schedules today," he says, and the dancer wants to protest -- he's okay, he's not sick, they can't afford to have him sick -- but he's continuing before he can put a word in, "and don't fight me on this. Kris-- Yifan is already calling the managers and they're giving you and Kyungsoo all the days you need until you're feeling better."

Jongin wants to protest again, wants to say that the two "most compatible" members of EXO staying home from shows at the dorm will make fans go nuts about them more than they already have, but he holds his tongue as a hand comes to rest upon the blankets layering over his shoulder.

"We all know your health hasn't been so well these past few months, and we want you to get better."

His heart stops in his throat. They know. They all know, judging by the sympathetic and even pitying looks he's getting from all twenty two eyes across the room. But they think he's sick. No one suspects anything different -- and why should they? Everyone'd gone through periods of exhaustion so bad they were puking at any given time during the trainee days, and he's been known to work so hard that he's injured himself (hips, ankles, you name it). It fit right in for him to be physically suffering from the extra dance practice that he could have been packing in.

(In reality, if anything, he's been slacking on practice. But no one needed to know that.)

He merely meekly nods a little, mustering up the most genuine smile he can manage and giving Kyungsoo's hand a soft reassuring squeeze within his own. Jongin voices empty thank yous and be carefuls and platonic I love yous (to the group as a whole -- avoiding two pairs of eyes in particular as he says it), asking if he can spend the day on the couch instead of his room. There's a chorused murmur of silent agreement and slowly, one by one (save from one pair of a blond and a giant going together), everybody but the redhead disperses with soft goodbyes and get well soons to start getting ready and finish the breakfast they'd previously been picking at when he'd burst out of his room.

Kyungsoo kneels by his side in silence the entire time, still holding his hand, his brow knit in the middle in obvious worry. When the door shuts with the last chorus of "have fun at home, you two" from Baekhyun, he reaches out from beneath the mass of blankets and smooths a thumb over the wrinkles marring where his forehead bunches, willing them away as he sees the other's facial muscles slowly relax and pull into a small, soft smile.

They don't kiss again but the elder lays atop Jongin, the latter's arms slung around his waist and lower back to hold him close and securely as he listens to his heartbeat, ear pressed to his chest. He watches as Kyungsoo's breathing slows and slows and eventually evens out and he falls asleep right there on top of him, the slightest smile on his lips as he basks in the lull of his dreams.

Jongin wonders what he looks like as he sleeps. When he has nightmares, does he frown? Does he shiver with the cold that envelops his heart in its icy, unforgiving hold? Does he cry in his sleep, sob silently as he dreams of a mop of blond standing at the altar with a man who is not him?

It feels wrong, thinking about the other with Kyungsoo balanced atop him as he is now. His hands slide from around the small of his back onto to the couch and he sighs, head tipping back into the cushioned cradle of the sofa. He wants to wake the elder up, maybe get him off so he can think alone and in peace, possibly be able to go to sleep himself without feeling uncomfortable resting with somebody who's not the one he wants to stay loyal to, but no matter which way he thinks of it there isn't an option where he doesn't lose his facade of having feelings for the redhead. In every possible, situation, he loses.

What's new?

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In what feels like days but is more like a few hours later Kyungsoo is rousing atop a wide eyed Jongin, who's eyes have been trained on the ceiling unblinkingly for so long when his eyelids finally close he realizes how much they burn. The smaller boy offers him the shiest of smiles and Jongin returns a plastered, vibrant one, reaching to ruffle the strands of red.

There's a few mumbles about sleeping well, about hopefully not burdening him, worsening sickness or catching it, and Kyungsoo is clambering off of a Jongin who is thankful for the pressure off of his thigh and scampering off to the kitchen to make soup.

Jongin lies there, drowning in his own thoughts, drowning in nothingness, the image of the crisscrossing scars on his legs stuck in his mind's eye. He's not entirely sure what's happened but he knows that his chest feels a little lighter, knows that despite the fact that he's playing the perfectly innocent, kind man in the next room into a lie to save his own conscience he doesn't feel half as guilty as he should as his legs sting and itch, begging to be touched and ripped open further.

When he gets up to sit at the kitchen table with blankets wrapped around his frame in a cradling, warm comfort, he stares down at the red soup swirling in his bowl and he stirs it idly, wondering if dumping the scaldingly hot substance on himself would result in feeling a hundred percent better. It's only when he sees Kyungsoo's worrying stare trained on him that he horrifyingly realizes that he's almost thinking suicidally, now, is thinking about intentionally physically harming himself. It's unacceptable, it's not okay, and if anyone found out he would most likely be torn from the idol world before he could utter an 'I can get better'.

Because he can. Jongin has a firm belief that if he wanted to, if he was forced to, he could abandon throwing up into the porcelain bowl each night, could learn to deal with his problems in some other way than hurting himself by doing it. He's not addicted, he's not ill neither physically nor mentally, he just has odd choices in his way of releasing his negative emotions.

The cuts on his thighs are merely a product of something supernatural that he hasn't yet figured out how to explain logically. Whatever'd crawled from hell to hurt him last night isn't a creature he'd ever heard of before but it's definitely real, it's definitely material and it's definitely something he has to keep to himself and figure out on his own. It would be harder to explain the monster than the throwing up, but the latter is much more noticeable and if he wants to remain under the radar from his company he'll have to tone things down considerably.

To keep his boyfriend from noticing anything is off, he plasters on a trademark Kai smile and asks for an ice cube to cool down his soup politely, averting the sticky situation coolly and smoothly. He’s thankful when the redhead doesn’t push further and murmurs agreement, flouncing off to the kitchen and taking the dancer’s thoughts with him.

Kim Jongin doesn't have a problem. He can quit this any time he wants to.

Right?

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three more weeks later and not much has happened in the ever eventful life of the dancer. A few days after his episode of bursting into the bathroom in front of all his members to upchuck his panic he's managed to wean himself slowly and slowly off of the throne and appear to be getting over his sickness with the rest he's taken. He goes to schedules, he smiles, he comes home and he cuddles Kyungsoo and playfights with him and he teases the rest of the members just as normal as he ever has (although he tries his best to nonchalantly avoid one in particular).

With Kyungsoo in his lap and his arms slung around his waist he feels horrible for trying to imagine that the neck he kisses up isn't the redhead's, feels terrible when he's disappointed that the moans that slip past those thick lips aren't pitched right to strike that one chord in his chest. He's not sure if his acting is going to be enough when Sehun throws a pillow at the couple and tells them to get a room before he's the one getting sick all over himself and the vocalist is all bedroom eyes and coy grinning as he clambers from the couch and drags Jongin from the living room and into the bedroom, where the door is locked behind them and music is played to drown out any noise.

He's pushed back into the bed and propped up against the headboard and though his body responds just right when Kyungsoo straddles his hips and grinds down right into him he doesn't feel anything past physicality, no connection other than the one of the arousal and lust between his legs aimed for the boy in his lap.

Clothes are peeled off (the dancer thankful his scars had faded into faint, barely noticable white lines in the dim light) and positions are switched and before he knows it Jongin is working his boyfriend open over the mattress with three lubed, slippery fingers, his mind much elsewhere from the soft mewls and whimpers that the latter makes as he rides down into the stretch pumping in and out of him. 

Kyungsoo's on his back and he's grappling at the sheets beneath him with both hands and although Jongin knows that as his lover he should be reaching up to hold his hand and lace his fingers into the spaces between the other's, it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel genuine, so he occupies his free hand with languidly trailing along the redhead's cock to keep him relaxed instead. It seems to work, and soon his hips cease and he's begging breathily for more, for more, he wants Jongin, he wants all of him. he can't do anything but comply.

Moments later the bottle of lubricant is being uncapped and his length is slathered in his contents, the head of his erection pressing to the redhead's twitching hole and slowly, slowly pushing in to let the other adjust to the new intrusion. It's both their first times and although Kyungsoo begs him to take it faster he thinks that if he'd been giving and taking virginity to the one he truly loved he'd want to drag out the experience for as long as he can manage to and ensure that no pain was felt.

Making love to Kyungsoo isn't genuine. Jongin fucks him open with long, slow and steady thrusts like he's supposed to but there's nothing there, no spark in his chest when he sees the way the vocalist is splayed out over the sheets in front of him, pliant and submissive.

(He thinks the adjective to describe the boy he's supposed to come up with is perfect, but the word doesn't even come to mind.)

It takes all of his willpower not to lose himself to a fantasy, lose himself to the much more desirable thought of another boy beneath him, because he's afraid of slipping up and groaning out the wrong name at the wrong time and shattering the careful illusion of his own sanity that he's built up around himself for others to see.

The tightness around his cock is delectable and it feels amazing, but the feeling of the curve of the hips beneath his bruising hold is too wide, not quite slim enough as he holds tight to it to cant himself forward and hit the spot that has Kyungsoo writhing and nearly sobbing in pleasure beneath him. When he bends to spill sloppy kisses over the torso of the boy beneath him he doesn't think about anything but how much the scent of strawberry shampoo and body wash has begun to make him feel sick to his stomach.

Lips meet each other messily and heat swells up into high waves of pleasure and crashes down into the pit of Jongin's stomach as his arousal coils into a hot burn, eyes rolling back into his head when nails drag down his biceps and spark a dull pain that simply zips down to his already achingly hard cock. Thick thighs are wrapped around him and they hoist up higher and higher as his thrusts grow more frantic and frantic because when he looks down and red hair splays out at odd angles over the primly white pillowcase it's not _right_ and it takes everything in him not to close his eyes or worse, even cry.

It's a slicked push and pull back and forth with Kyungsoo inching back to impale himself on Jongin's cock as he bends further and further over when the younger leans forward and practically folds him in half, his hands sliding around to the backs of his own thighs to hold himself taut in place. The high moans that are tumbling from his mouth with each cant into him grow more pitched and pitched until his voice cracks and he's only whimpering, cock curved pretty and flushed against his stomach as he begs his boyfriend to touch him.

Jongin can't bring himself to.

His fingers tighten on the redhead's hips and he grunts softly as if silently explaining that he can't spare a hand right now (though it's an outright lie, he's just not able to mentally take responsibility) and watches as the boy gets the hint, thankfully. The swarm of guilt that is supposed to rush into his chest is overcome by the orgasm curling in the base of his belly and his eyes shut tight at the last moment, sanity preventing him from keeping his eyes trained down as a flash of a blond headed boy flickers before the canvas of his eyelids.

His sac tightens and muscles clench and he's able to hold himself for a mere second before the flick of Kyungsoo's wrist over himself sends him over the edge and the splatter of white over his hand, chest, and chin has his walls swallowing Jongin's dick so tight he's tipped over the edge, seed unloading itself up and into the boy. There's a few weak thrusts forward to milk himself dry and the vocalist twists his palm a few times before they're both collapsing and although neither had lasted very long, both are satisfied (although as Jongin is satisfied merely sexually Kyungsoo has taken it to heart on a whole new level that the former prays he doesn't bring up).

He pulls out and settles beside his boyfriend, tugging him into an embrace close enough to seem normal yet not so close that he himself becomes uncomfortable, basking in the afterglow of his peak. He thinks that although the rest of it has been mental torture, this part gets him farther away from his thoughts than mostly anything had before, has him coming out with a better outcome at the end of it all.

That is, until the boy beside him catches enough air to speak.

"I love you," he says, and Jongin's carefully structured dark fantasy comes crashing around his ears.

"I love you," he says, and Jongin can't seem to find the breath he'd seized back not moments before.

"I love you," he says, and Jongin's vision swims and stomach churns until black is blooming in front of his eyes from too much carbon dioxide in his lungs and he's passing out, right there and then, the three poisoned words echoing in his ears.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning he awakes with a killer headache and Kyungsoo still wrapped up tight in his arms. Jongin figures he'd simply assumed that the dancer had passed out out of exhaustion rather than lack of air, as of course as soon as he'd conked out his lungs had started to work again, filtering out the toxic material and absorbing the life supply to keep himself alive and functioning.

There's an itchy feeling across his thighs and air hitches in his throat as he rolls away from his partner carefully and rises from bed, realizing a pair of boxers has been slung over his hips when he clearly knows that he'd fallen asleep in the nude. Careful to be quiet he checks the clock; 4:30 am. Light footsteps lead Jongin into the bathroom where he locks the door behind him, staring at himself in the reflection of the mirror.

His eyes are more hooded than usual, lids heavy and bags even heavier, the tired expression on his face worse than it's ever been. 'Sleepy Kai' has become less of a cute nickname for the fans and more of a normality. 

Performances, variety shows, especially visits to the airport -- makeup can only cover up so much weariness. It becomes evident in the way his spine slouches forward, in the way his shoulders droop and his dancing is rendered much lazier. Maybe the fans and media are a little late on the upkeep with this but the company notices, the members and managers and choreographers notice and not only does it make them irritated it worries them. No one brings it up but Jongin can overhear them whispering to each other about it before he comes out from behind a corner and they clam themselves up with small sheepish smiles.

Looking past the drowsiness settled deep into his bones he presses his lips into a trembling line, even shakier hands lowering to hook two thumbs into the waistband of his underwear. He peels them down the slightest amount and his breath hitches in anticipation, gaze not tearing from the mirror as they draw lower and lower.

Not ten seconds later the elastic is snapping back to his skin and leaving a red hot sting behind as his stomach squirms, turns, and crashes, body fallen sideways to the floor just in time to aim and hurl the contents of last night's dinner right into the toilet. A bit slops over onto the floor and with the sound of the splat of the half liquid half solid onto the tile he feels a whole other bout of nausea washing over him, a wave of uncomfortable heat falling down to the tips of his toes only to rise again in a wave of bile rushing up his throat.

Underneath the fabric had been bandages, thick ones, bloodied and rusted red and worse than the ones from before. Jongin is petrified to see what’s underneath but some force bigger than his fear has him nudging his boxers down, stripping off the gauze and paring back the adhesive again. There are too many slashes to count and he has to swallows back the vomit that bubbles back up in his stomach.

This is bad.

This is so, so bad. (so is my writing)

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jongin knows he’s tangled up in something bigger than himself, worse than himself, and that he needs help from someone, or something, before he breaks. He’s kept the edges of himself taped together precariously for so long and he’s in an eternal tug of war between his image and his reality, the opposite forces of either threatening to snap his sanity right in two.

He can’t let this affect Kyungsoo, or him, or really any of EXO at all. It’s Kim Jongin’s problem, not Kai’s, and this is where he knows he has to keep things separate. Maybe he can’t help that his love has gotten mixed up in things but he’ll do his damn best to keep his psychological problems to himself, and himself only.

Because he’s strong.

Because he can make it through this.

Because even if he can’t, that’s okay.

Jongin is okay, because Jongin says he is okay. He’s okay because as long as he is Kai, he cannot be anything but okay. And if Jongin doesn’t like that, then that’s just another problem to add to the list. Him and his worry, his wellbeing -- neither matter when there is so much more at stake to lose than stability.

If he’s not okay, then he’s not worth anything.

If he breaks, if he shatters into smaller and smaller shards of himself, if he can no longer piece himself back into at least a discernible shadow of the boy everyone had known -- then Jongin has no point to anyone, no point to even himself.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Jongin?” A soft, familiar voice floats through the trance Jongin’d set himself into (after sitting beside Kyungsoo on the couch to watch Pororo for probably the nth time that week) to zone out, head snapping up with an pang of terror so harsh he can’t hide it from his expression so quickly after being snapped from a daze.

It only takes him a moment to morph the horror into an emotion that of surprise, but he can tell the blond has noticed the true emotion hidden within the shell of the real boy from Seoul before he could mask it over with the happy facade of the home version of Kai. 

He walks off before even saying or asking whatever he had called Jongin over for in the first place, and if anything that scares him more than the aspect of talking to him had at all.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fear may not be a friend, but it’s the only company that Jongin lets himself have.

Sehun doesn’t ask him anymore to go out for bubble tea, or for an opinion on an airport outfit, or even just to fool around and be kids together like he always had. He goes to Tao, who had never been as close to him as Jongin had but now seems to be taking his place as the maknae’s best friend. Kai is happy for him. Jongin misses his stupid laughter, stupid jokes, the stupid things they used to do together -- but knows it’s for the best of both.

Joonmyun worries from afar but Jongin doesn’t let him ask questions, shoots him down with smiles and keeps him at bay by changing the subject and redirecting him to worry instead about comeback dates, about Minseok’s weight loss, about Chanyeol’s uncomfortable twitch. He can tell that his temper runs thin now, his worry lines more visible and he knows it’s his fault. 

He can’t bother to pay his own worry to Joonmyun because makeup can cover up imperfections like so, so it doesn’t affect EXO. He can’t bother because Joonmyun does not love him, his heart cannot break when he’d never given it away. There are no losses but for himself, and he has nothing important enough to pay mind to losing now anyways; he barely feels the sting when his leader stops coming around to check on him after he wakes up in the middle of the night and pads off to the bathroom to retch into the toilet.

Yixing sometimes drags him off to dance, and Jongin lets him, because it’s something he never would have denied and still can’t object to. Dance is a release, and they don’t talk, merely practice the choreography embedded in stone into their brains over and over until they run mindless and boneless, collapsing into heaps on the studio floor until they catch their breath and make their way back to the studio. The Chinese boy may seem daft at times but when it comes down to it, Jongin thinks he knows. He can tell that there’s something wrong, but he’s intuitive enough never to ask questions, never to press too far. Sometimes, Jongin wishes he would. Kai knows that he can’t.

Chanyeol tries -- oh, does Chanyeol try.

Movie nights, video games, ordering randomly large amounts of chicken and pizza to pig out like they had before; he stops at nothing to try and bring the Jongin he knew back. (By now most can tell he’s gone somewhere else -- most idols do, it’s somewhat normal to lose yourself.) But the inner kid in the dancer had flown the coop long ago and now the virus is left alone, childishness sometimes matched by Baekhyun but smile always marred by a deepset anxiousness centred around his bandmate. (Sometimes, it gives Jongin faith that he’s not a hopeless cause, to know that someone is unwilling to give up on him entirely.)

Kyungsoo, of course, is the only exception. He’s happy, oh so happy, because of Jongin. He prefers to be blind to how he has changed from genuine smiles and cheesy jokes to crooked smirks and false proclamations of love and constant innuendos, taking the easy way and choosing to believe his words instead.

There are exceptions to the one exception -- sometimes, when they’re alone in the dorm or in Jongin’s or his own room, Kyungsoo takes a breath. He thinks. He sees.

He asks.

Jongin makes sure to press him down into the sheets every time, bite the hatred for himself and his situation into love all over Kyungsoo’s skin, and make him believe that this is genuine. He needs Kyungsoo to believe when no one else does because he’s his lifeline, now, the one he has to fool entirely because if he doesn’t then Jongin isn’t sure that he can fool himself anymore.

Kyungsoo bites his tongue and lets himself accept and take faith in everything that his boyfriend tells him, because he’d rather be happy than see the misery he notices in his member’s eyes reflected in his own.

And Jongin is grateful.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s become routine.

Wake up in the morning, check for Jongdae and Junmyeon, peel back the boxers, or the sheets, and count. Number off each line on his thigh and press a nail into each, careful not to dig it open but only to make it sting, to relive the pain that keeps him grounded.

Jongin still isn’t sure how this supernatural being works. On good days he may show up and on bad he may not, but no matter what Jongin sees him at least thrice a week. He checks the windowsill, he locks it every night for the first while to try to keep the thing away but after a bit he stops.

After a bit, the dancer finds that he needs this monster to visit him. He needs the release and he needs the pain because despite Kyungsoo keeping his facade locked away in his heart he can’t keep it up without a little bit of help. He itches when he doesn’t get it, he begins to break up and fragment without something keeping him held down. He leaves the window open a crack, or simply just unlocked, and as he does he finds that the lacerations begin to travel elsewhere.

Jongin discovers one out of place first after his thighs have bled so bad that there had been four layers of bandages soaked with the blood, head woozy with how much he’d lost for the whole day. The next morning after spending the day at home exempt from schedules he checks himself, finds nothing new, and is puzzled.

There’s no itch despite how much he’d still felt the need but instead a relief that he can’t quite place. It takes him a bit but he finds them, on his ankle, a simple few, as if a test. He wears socks through the dorm the whole day and prays to whatever force is harming him for his own help that they do not use the same risky place again.

However, the taste of blood is not as pleasant. Sometimes his teeth stain red from the cuts on the inside of his mouth, and he has to scrub and scrub with the stiff bristles of a toothbrush to get it out before he ends up upchucking anyways because the taste of toothpaste churns his stomach so bad he can’t help it.

Chest, collarbones, stomach -- you name it. Jongin has the scars to show you. He’s become an expert on covering them, on adjusting his clothing and adjusting how he performs on stage to lift his shirt just enough to get the girls screaming but not enough to reveal the parts that no one is allowed to see.

However, his relationship with Kyungsoo has become difficult. 

The sex was the only thing that kept them together, he needed to maintain it -- he could distract him from the faintly visible, foundation caked marks on his thighs by wrapping his lips around his cock and making his eyes flutter shut in pleasure, but once they had begun to travel up his body things were a little more difficult.

Jongin settles on leaving his shirt on entirely and making up a new excuse each time (“we have to make this quick”, “the members might see”, “no time”), although he can see that Kyungsoo has started to believe in his lies less and less.

So he turns to Chanyeol. Jongin knows that he does because the few times he actually goes looking for him, he’s beneath the rapper’s arm with red rimmed eyes, their hips pressed together atop the cushions of the sofa and heads bowed together too close to just be friendly. It should hurt, he should feel jealous, but everything in his chest is blank and empty and void of anything but.. nothing.

He walks in on the two kissing at one point, Kyungsoo’s arms around Chanyeol’s neck and the latter’s over his hips, bodies pressed so close together if he was only looking as he was passing by they could have come off as one person as a whole.

Jongin simply walks out without a word, the couple too absorbed in each other to notice he’d even been there in the first place.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Things continue. 

EXO begins to lose Jongin further and further -- he’s no longer as involved on variety shows, his performances become sloppy as he loses his dedication and motivation and slacks on practice. The previous umph that had made him stand out in his dancing now has him a beat too slow, a step behind, lagging farther and farther away from everyone else. 

Fanservice outside of Kyungsoo is pretty much nonexistent, now, even that not coming up to par as it used to. The most he’ll do is manage a (fake) smile, maybe hold his hand for a little while, and it’s nearly the same at the dorm. Once and a while he’ll pull him into his lap on movie night (because despite the fact that he’s nearly stopped appearing as the old Jongin, he still tries to keep up some appearances) and sometimes he’ll kiss Kyungsoo’s cheek in innocence, but if there’s any contact it’s mostly physical, dirty, hot, and rushed.

Once, while they’re in bed together, Jongin opens his eyes from where he’s distracted himself with thoughts of later that night (a wondering of how bad the burn in his throat will be this time, of how deep the slashes will be tonight) only to find that Kyungsoo’s cheeks are wet, cock soft against his stomach. He’d been so tuned out he hadn’t heard the sobs, hadn’t felt the nails digging deep into his shoulders or the unaroused trembling beneath him.

Before he can get the other’s name out, real concern in the back of his throat (because this isn’t right, he’s supposed to make Kyungsoo happy -- and unless these tears are of happiness, he doesn’t think he is), the elder’s ahead of him, choking out a sentence that has Jongin pausing.

He doesn’t ask why Jongin doesn’t love him, doesn’t tell him that he needs a break, doesn’t say he loves Chanyeol, only asks one thing, only says five words in repetition.

“Where did you go, Jongin? Where did you go?”

The hesitation lasts a few moments, as Jongin draws from Kyungsoo and ducks his head, before his eyes lift to meet the elder’s with caution. His voice is quiet, words truthful for the first time in what feels like years.

“I don’t know.”

\---

No one says anything, really. There’s no spoken agreement that anything has changed, but everyone can tell.

Jongin has lost everyone, now. Kyungsoo has gravitated towards Chanyeol -- after what he calls ‘The Night’ had happened, they hadn’t spoken. (Kyungsoo had left the room without saying anything at all, gathering his clothes and ignoring the ‘I love you’ Jongin softly called out after him). Nobody says it aloud but it’s accepted that they’ve broken up. 

The new couple don’t out it in the dorm, don’t kiss and cuddle and smile stupidly at each other like Kyungsoo had with Jongin; their relationship is only evident in the way the taller will always find his place beside his other, the way their hands slip into each other’s beneath tables and between their thighs, in the short looks they share that hold more than all of the emotion in any gaze Jongin had settled on him.

He finds that things are even lonelier at the bottom than he’d ever thought. Even when he’d been at what he thought was his worst, he’d still had Kyungsoo, he’d still had a bit of his band, of his career, of his passion. Now he’s left with absolutely nothing at all and it’s nothing like what he’d expected it to be, finding himself void of air and gasping for breath when he’s alone with nothing but his thoughts and realizes how bad he’s become.

Despite the fact that he’d never loved Kyungsoo, he can’t help but miss him. He’d been a rock when Jongin had needed one, somewhere to take out frustration with himself and the world and somewhere to give all the affection he’d had but never been able to give (at least to who he wanted to).

But he continues. Jongin goes to performances and shows and goes through all emotions but the passion is gone; he does his best but the disapproving looks he gets from his managers and members, the disappointment on his fans’ faces when he slips up or his voice cracks -- they wear away at him, eroding at his already hollow chest and leaving it barer than before.

The marks on his arms and legs and clavicles begin to show and despite the concealer that the coordi noonas pack onto his skin people still notice. Articles crop up online and when he sees them, words stick out (‘skinny’, ‘debauched’, ‘paler’, ‘lifeless’, ‘scars’, ‘self harm’, ‘help’) but none register properly.

Jongin isn’t himself anymore, he thinks. He’s lost what he’s used to be and now he’s not even sure what he is. 

He feels like a bag of skin and bones, one knitted to the other through joints and seams that feel about to burst with all the pressure loaded on his frail shoulders at the end of each day. Night brings bile, night brings blood, and night brings splitting stitches that let everything and anything leak back out so he starts anew for the next day, empty and ready for more responsibility.

He’s a ragdoll, a puppet on thin strings being controlled by whoever he thinks he needs to please next, his smile permanent and vacant and emotions held under tight lock and key. His company, the few fans he has left, the tabloids, his former friends -- they don’t know they hold the wires keeping him together and functioning. but they influence him all just the same. He only moves at what he thinks is their will, doesn’t say a word unless it suits what’s become his purpose.

Jongin only slips up once, but once is all it takes.

His free time, previously spent dancing or in the living room fooling around with Sehun or annoying the hell out of Joonmyun, now is instead wasted sitting in his room, wound up in his blankets. He sleeps a lot, but sometimes he simply stares at the ceiling and lets himself fade from reality, from thought, to a time and place that feels even farther away than it is. 

Chanyeol is the first to ever invade his space. He comes barging without knocking and stirs Jongin from his reverie where he sits up in bed, porcelain white sheets gathered around him still as he practically cowers at the corner of the bed. He pulls them closer as the taller storms closer, eyes rimmed red and cheeks blotchy from how he’d obviously been crying.

His fist raises and Jongin flinches, more from reflex than from fear, and he looks ready to explode, jaw set and eyes ablaze before it all fades. His muscles fall lax and eyes soften and well with more tears, hands falling to the bed in front of Jongin. His shoulders shake with sobs.

Jongin doesn’t reach out, doesn’t pat him or try to comfort him because he knows no comfort at all is better than something empty. Chanyeol eventually looks up, cheeks stained wet and eyes shining as he whispers, voice pitiful and defeated.

“Why does he love you so much?” He says. Jongin doesn’t blink. “Why can’t you just love him back, please, just make him happy, because I can’t seem to do it like you did. God.. Jongin, why are you so _selfish_?”

That strikes home. His fingers tighten around the duvet, back straightens, and lips set into a line as his voice comes out firm and real for the first time in months.

“Get out.”

\---

An hour later, he’s still in bed. The door isn’t locked but no one enters.

Jongin can’t breathe. There’s too much space around him and he feels so, so small, the room too big that it stifles him. He can’t get enough oxygen into his lungs and he’s so so so alone and he realizes now how much that hurts. 

He realizes how _wrong_ he was. In the process of trying to make Kyungsoo happy, of accepting his confession, of going along with everything that he’d wanted and everything that he’d thought would leave everything normal and how it should be -- he realizes he’d hurt him more than he ever could have if he had rejected like he should have.

His hands follow motions he doesn’t know or recognize. The haze of numbness has since faded and he can see everything clearly now. The pain and heavy load echoing over his whole body, the weariness weighing him down and sharp tugging at his chest just won’t stop. His fingers reach into his bedside drawer and it’s an out of body experience as he watches himself tug out a box beneath a blanket of tissues and open it on his bedspread.

Inside are antiseptic wipes, a stack of bandages, and too many razor blades for him to count.

Memories hit him in a wave so strong he physically clutches his chest with the breath that again evades and escapes his lungs, and images flicker by so fast it takes an extra second to register the last. 

Waking up in the middle of the night and feeling so weighed down and pitiful he’d found a blade in the box of spares in the bathroom, taken it back to his room, and pressed it to his skin until it broke. Blood, blood, blood, so much blood. Crimson everywhere, staining his thighs, his fingertips, his wrists, his sheets. The stack of razors in his drawer growing bigger and bigger, the criss cross lines overlapping each other and blotting his thighs with so much blood he can’t tell where his tears land atop it any longer. Running out of room and finding new places, experimenting, figuring out where he likes and what he liked.

It had been a lie, a figment of his imagination that turned itself into a nightmare that swept over every single memory of his own fingers pressing that cool metal into his skin, instead replacing it with that of a monster’s spindly black digits taking the blame for him. A surreal being that represented the act because his subconscious couldn’t handle the fact that he was doing it to himself. 

It’s with yet another gasp he realizes the monster represents himself. He is the monster, he is _a_ monster.

Jongin hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes but when he opens them he becomes sick to his stomach. He’s slashed himself open so deep, so so deep, worse than the memories of before, worse than anything he’d discovered beneath his bandages before.

His arms and legs are littered completely and one particular cut runs along the inside of his wrist, sweeping across the street instead of down it. It pulses and Jongin can see blood pouring out more and more with each pulse, his head swimming and stomach bubbling with the urge to hurl. 

This is not a release anymore, not a new beginning, this is an end, and he’s never been as scared as he is now.

His fear petrifies him and he doesn’t think to take the antiseptic or the bandages to try and stop the bleeding, merely trembles and nudges everything away and _stares_. Jongin doesn’t call out as he falls back, spine too flimsy to hold himself up anymore and backbone fading as his will to fight and keep himself held together any longer, merely hiccuping a soft sob.

The taste of blood bubbles at the back of his throat and it’s then he knows that he’s going to die. It’s going to end for real soon and he’s going to be alone, so so alone. Nothing has changed. He almost smiles at the prospect of not having to deal with the pain of the solitude anymore.

But then there’s a knock on his door. Jongin idly wonders who it is, if it’s Kyungsoo maybe coming to ask for forgiveness, Chanyeol to apologize or even to lecture him further. He’s reminded of the selfish comment and he feels sick again. (All he’s ever done is try to do good for everyone else -- the epiphany that he hadn’t done so at all is so horrifyingly grotesque he wouldn’t mind dying to escape it.)

The person enters without Jongin’s response. His head is angled towards the ceiling as he coughs and the blood pooling at the back of his throat bubbles up and past his lips, staining their thickness red as the soaked white covers around him. He can’t tell who’s at the door until they gasp and the sound strikes right in his already cold chest.

_No._ He would rather die alone than with _him_ in the room. He doesn’t want the initial pain that had sent him spiralling to follow him on his way to death, please please please, he pleads with the gods, with his mind, with anything he can think of.

“Jongin,” is all he says before he’s at his bedside and he’s hovering over the former dancer, his hands above him as if they don’t know where to go. His eyes brim with water and his blond fringe is just short enough that it doesn’t hang over them and Jongin has a clear view. It stings his heart to see. 

He coughs again and more blood comes up past his lips and spills down his cheeks to sink into the mattress beneath his head. (He idly wonders if they’ll have to wash the blood from his hair or redye it entirely for his burial.)

“Why?” 

It’s quiet and it’s broken and Jongin knows that the other doesn’t deserve to be hurt like this. He deserves the world in his hands, all the love and friendship and success, not the loss and hurt and heartbreak. (Though even a small part of him is wishing that he _could_ cause him heartbreak. It’s hopeless. He’s hopeless.)

There’s so much he could say to reply. He doesn’t have the time to say it all, however. He could explain that it was his fault, that his relationship had been the thing to set Jongin off -- but he doesn’t want the last memory of them together to be so negative, so blaming. He doesn’t want him to remember Jongin like that.

A speech comes to mind. One written and practiced so so long ago, before any of this, when he’d thought that he’d had a chance. If it wasn’t too much effort to smile, he would. 

He remembers being so giddy, picking out the perfect words to explain his feelings and the cheesy lines he knew that the other would love and laugh at to lighten the antsy feeling already growing in his then-healthy belly. He’d wrote it down in grossly bright pink ink, had doodled hearts and J + L and had practiced at the studio and in front of the mirror until it was perfect down to a tee.

Jongin definitely can’t remember it now after so long, but he remembers the gist of it. He remembers the last couple words. 

With his last breath he musters himself up and smiles, eyes focusing past the black spots blooming in front of his vision on the blond in front of him, and he gives his last words to Luhan, cuts his heart out into a phrase and sets it on a platter for the love of his literal life to keep for himself before everything fades to black and his heart ceases.

“I love you.”


End file.
